


Phoenix

by guineapiggie



Series: In Another Life [6]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/M, I got slightly carried away, Inspired By Tumblr, Prompts: phoenix & theatre AU, Written for the Rebelcaptain May 4th exchange, and Cassian is a huge sap as per usual, both literal action and other action, in which I try too hard to make a theme work, sigh, tragic lack of action
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-25 22:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: He wonders exactly how aware she is of the unfortunate angle he’s sitting at – it’s not like he’stryingto look up her skirt, it’s just that there is nearly no way around it when she is standing this close to the edge of the stage.“Violent ends, Cassian,” Kay says morosely. “Let nobody say I didn’t warn you.”“Kay,” he replies in an even tone without taking his eyes off the stage, “if you quote Shakespeare one more time, I will throw you out.”..Cassian Andor takes a gamble that nearly costs him more than just his career. Two years later, he's trying to get back on his feet.





	Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andromeda3116](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromeda3116/gifts).



> This was written for the [rebelcaptain May the 4th exchange on tumblr.](https://therebelcaptainnetwork.tumblr.com/post/159304130581/hello-exchange-participants-all-assignments-for)  
> for the lovely andromeda3116, who gave me the following prompts: _phoenix; theatre AU_
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this!

 

 

**[then]**

_She is all hope and heat and bright light, and when her fire flares and consumes her, he crumbles to ashes as well. He got too close to the flames, far too close – but despite it all, despite the pain, he can’t bring himself to regret it, not really._

_It takes years for the burns to heal, and on the good days he trades the pain for a chill in his bones that he can’t seem shake, but he can’t afford to pay that any mind._

_Because as the damn saying goes, the show must go on._

 

**[now]**

“Kay,” he says in a strained whisper. “Kay, remind me why we casted this harpy?”

Kay frowns up at Lydia Windham, waving her script into some poor-stage workers face and yelling about how she is unable to deliver her line with a cardboard tree blocking her path, and sighs.

“Well, probably because she’s the best fit for this role.”

Cassian huffs in frustration and runs his hands over his face. “I know she comes recommended, and I know she’s good, but… she’s just – she’s missing a _spark,_ you know?”

Kay throws him a dark look and says: “Well, long as that means this one won’t _crash and burn_ , I’ll be grateful for it.”

Cassian responds with a warning sideward glance, takes a deep breath and mutters: “I can’t work with this woman. At least not without another litre of espresso and possibly a shot.”

“Gun or alcohol?” Bodhi Rook murmurs, sinking a little deeper into his seat and sounding like he’s ready to provide both. Cassian shoots his lead actor a sympathetic look and gets to his feet.

“I’ll take either one at this point,” he replies darkly and Bodhi laughs.

“Rehearsal resumes in five, people,” Kay announces, but nobody on stage or off it takes visible notice of him, much to his disgruntlement.

Bodhi gets back up on stage, looking rather miserable, and Cassian sighs.

“Well, I’m at least getting some hot coffee, this place is fucking freezing,” he says and adds very quietly as he shoves past Kay: “And we both know she is _not_ the best fit for this role.”

“We also both know _why_ you settled for second-best, though, right?” Kay says with a sharp, cautious undertone and Cassian grimaces and tries to ignore the pressure in his rib cage and a long-lost taste on his lips.

“Yes. I know.”

 

**[then]**

_The first few weeks – months, actually – go by in a strange haze, his head clouded and his eyes stinging as though the rooms he walks are still full of dying smoke._

_He supposes the whole thing is a disaster, and that he probably should be worried about his career._

_He can’t quite find the strength._

_Everyone looks at him with such worry, but he’s not… he’s not_ hurting. _He’s just exhausted, and he feels empty; empty and cold._

**[now]**

“The play, appropriately titled _Phoenix_ , will premier in two weeks’ time. However, it does not seem likely that this piece by an unknown writer should be enough for the director to rise from the ashes of his last production, during which the main actress abandoned the project mere days before the premiere…”

Kay lowers the newspaper to throw him a dark look and Cassian sighs and pulls his jacket tighter around his shoulder.

“Oh, come on.” He rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his coffee. “You weren’t expecting Krennic to write a favourable review, were you?”

“This isn’t just _unfavourable_ , Cassian. It’s a disaster.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Kay.”

“I’m not dramatic,” his friend says sharply, “you just haven’t heard the worst part. Here: Jyn Erso, the actress in question, has since turned her attention to the movie industry and has just been confirmed as a cast member of the next instalment of Science-Fiction saga “War of the Stars”. Though she has since refused to comment on why she chose to leave Andor’s production two years ago, he is rumoured to be the sole reason Erso turned her back on the theatre – not so great a loss, in a connoisseur’s opinion –“

“Stop, Kay.”

“Now she’s got that role she’s going to be giving interviews left and right, Cassian. And the fact she left us hanging out to dry will gain public knowledge, and why should people go to see a production that wasn’t good enough for their new favourite actress?”

“I said _stop_ ,” he repeats quietly, but Kay shakes his head.

“We need to handle this, Cassian!”

“We don’t need to do anything!” he bites back more viciously than he intended. “She got a big role, I’m happy for her. There’s nothing we can do about the rest, except make sure we’re so good that people will want to come see this. That’s how theatre works.”

“That’s how theatre worked _in the middle ages,_ Cassian! We can’t _ignore_ the media!”

He gets to his feet, knocking over his empty coffee cup. “There’s nothing we can do, Kay.”

“Yes, there is,” Kay says softly. “You can give a statement. About what really happened.”

“What _really_ happened?” he repeats, too loudly. “You want me to tell the world that she hadn’t been in a thing this big since she was sixteen and she panicked? If I make her look that unreliable, I could ruin her entire career, Kay!”

“You could tell them that you were having an affair and she left you for personal reasons and it had nothing to do with the play!”

He glowers at his old friend. “It had _everything_ to do with the play.”

“Did it?” Kay says in a sharp voice. “Or do you just tell yourself that because you can’t face the idea that maybe she just didn’t love you, Cassian?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” he says sharply. “Just shut the hell up about this –“ He takes a few deep, shuddering breaths, then adds in a slightly calmer tone: “Besides, do you really think if I admit to sleeping with my lead actress that’s going to make us look any better?”

Kay sighs. “We have to come up with something.”

“No,” Cassian says firmly. “You leave this alone. You leave her alone, or you’re going to be sorry, Kay. We can get through this. We just have to be good.”

Kay is silent for a very long time. “You could call her, maybe she has –“

“Kay. I said we’re leaving her out of it.” He shoves his cold fingers deep into his pockets and glowers at his old friend until Kay sighs and nods in resignation.

 

**[then]**

_He knows what she’ll say before she says it, because she looks broken and scared and lost, the flames in her eyes reduced to embers and ashes._

_“I’m sorry, I – I can’t go up there. I can’t do it, I thought I could but I can’t and I… I hope this doesn’t fall back on you because I honestly don’t mean to damage your career or – or hurt you in any way and I’m so sorry but I – I gotta go –“_

_He’s still just standing there, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knows he should probably do something but instead he just looks at her, frozen, and Jyn rises on tip-toe and presses her lips to his._

_“Goodbye, Cassian.”_

_He just stands there and watches her leave._

**[now]**

Cassian could really, _really_ do with a drink right about now.

It’s opening night, he’s just done talking his friend and also _main actor_ down from a bad fit of stage fright, his assistant is nowhere to be found and he is on the verge of losing his temper with Lydia.

He can’t believe anyone in the world could actually be convinced he is sleeping with her – as a few papers have predictably implied several times, no surprise there after all the rumours about his last production. At the moment, he’s more likely to strangle Lydia to death.

“You alright, Mr. Andor?”

He looks up to find the imposing figure of stage worker Baze Malbus towering over him and tries to throw him a smile.

“Yes, I – Frankly, I just wanna get this over with,” he mutters and Baze chuckles.

“Um, Mr… Mr. Andor?” says a shy voice behind him and he turns around to find one of their interns – in this case, an overly enthusiastic high-school sophomore with a mildly diabetes-inducing optimism about him – hovering at his elbow.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Kay said to call you into the foyer…?”

Cassian frowns. “What the hell would I be doing there? The show starts in –“

“He said to fetch you. He said it’s urgent.”

Cassian groans and nods. “Wonderful. Shit. Thank you, Luke.”

He hurries through the corridors and stumbles into the pool of audience members in the marble front hall where he realises how ruffled he must look and hurriedly tries to smoothen out his wrinkled jacket – he should’ve had it ironed, but he wasn’t planning on wearing it. It’s just that it’s always so goddamn _cold_ in this stupid building…

“Kay, what the hell’s going on, do you know we have no more than twenty minutes –“

His friend takes a deep breath and nods towards the gallery. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

Cassian follows his gaze with a frown and feels his jaw slack a little.

“Oh,” he says, very faintly.

“That’s right,” Kay mutters. “Well, I guess that settles my worries about press coverage.”

She’s wearing a flowing gold dress that looks like it glows in the soft light and _God,_ she’s a vision. Cassian feels his heart swelling to an uncomfortable size that makes it hard to swallow.

After two years of nothing but a handful of pictures in tabloids, he doesn’t quite trust his eyes to confirm she’s really there.

And then suddenly, her gaze falls on him and she makes her way down the stairs.

_Shit._

“Cassian,” she says and he physically feels himself flinch. He’s fairly certain there is far more blood rushing to his face than strictly necessary.

“Hi.” His voice sounds all wrong.

“I was glad to hear you’re back in the game. Been looking forward to seeing this for a while.”

He gives a nervous little laugh and realises belatedly that Kay next to him has pulled a damn impressive disappearing act.

He can't believe it hasn't occurred to him for one second in all this time that she might come to _see_ the play.

“Well, we’ll see how it goes.”

Jyn smiles for real this time. “You’ll be fine. You’re not listening to that arse Krennic, are you?”

He scoffs. “The man who called you second-rate, twice? Why would I, he’s clearly blind.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Anyway, congratulations. I would’ve sent flowers or something, but…” He realises he has no idea where he was going with that sentence and unsuccessfully tries to bridge the gap with a little flailing, then finishes lamely: “… well, you probably get them all the time.”

She sighs and casts her eyes down. “I nearly ruined you, didn’t I?” she asks in a small voice. “God, I’m so sorry about all that, Cassian –“

“No, don’t,” he mutters. “I pushed you into this. I was an ass for putting it on you.”

“You were doing your goddamn job,” she replies firmly and Cassian sighs and takes a few steps away from her, avoiding her eyes. His throat feels a little too tight.

“Anyway, I’ll better head back, um… you know, last attempt to save this thing.”

“Sure,” she says and he nods, then thinks better of it and finally lifts his eyes to meet hers. There it is, green and gold and fire, and it hurts, it _hurts,_ but he feels warm and dizzy and alive.

“I hope he treats you right,” he adds softly, against better judgement. “That banker you’re with, I mean.”

“Damn it, you _did_ read up on me.” She chuckles and casts her eyes down. “Well, I broke up with him.”

Cassian feels a bitter little smile tug at his lips. “And he let you walk away, did he?”

She doesn’t reply, which is answer enough.

“Well, then he probably wasn’t good enough for you in the first place.”

“Cassian –“

“I really need to go. I hope you’ll like it,” he says in a strained voice and Jyn smiles a little.

“Break a leg.”

 _Exit stage left,_ Cassian thinks with a surge of embarrassment, is probably the least humiliating way to describe the hurried departure that follows.

 

**[then]**

_“God damn it, man, get a hold of yourself,” Kay snaps, waving a hand in front of his face impatiently._

_“Sorry,” Cassian says blearily, tearing his eyes away. “I didn’t sleep a lot.”_

_“Honestly, I will never understand why she gets under your skin like that –“_

_“_ Will you keep your voice down?”

_Kay scoffs. “I suppose she’s easy enough on the eyes, but…”_

_Easy on the eyes, Cassian thinks with a cynical smile, doesn’t cut it at all. First of all, it’s an understatement. Secondly, it’s just not true._

_Jyn Erso isn’t_ easy _to look at. Not easy at all._

_It’s that sudden bright heat she gets in her eyes, that flush in her cheeks, her red lips, always red. Something about her tears at his heart, just enough that it hurts a little to look at her._

_It’s part of why she works so well on stage, he supposes, part of how she draws her audience in._

_(And him. Him most of all.)_

_“Are you even listening to me?”_

_He throws Kay a tired smile. “Yes. Of course I am.”_

**[now]**

“Well,” Bodhi says softly, his voice barely audible over the applause. “We lived.”

Cassian smiles a little and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You were good, Bodhi. Really good.”

The actor opens his mouth to reply, then suddenly something catches his eye and then there’s a very strange look on his face and he says, even quieter: “Cassian. She’s here.”

She is standing up on the balconies, and Cassian has been alternating between staring and desperately trying to avoid eye contact from the moment he stepped onto the stage after the performance. Her shimmery dress catches the light, she is hard to miss – or so he tells himself.

He’s got rid of the jacket, but suddenly he feels like he’s burning up anyway.

He throws Bodhi a small smile and nods. “I know.”

The actor throws him a quick sideward glance, his well-trained smile crumbling a little around the edges.

“Are you okay?”

Cassian allows his eyes to flicker up to the balconies, catching her looking right back in a way that makes his breath hitch, then tears his eyes away.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” he replies softly, and he’s feeling so strangely removed from the world that he can actually believe that himself. Bodhi looks a little concerned but seems to decide that a crowded stage in front of a clapping audience might not be the place for it.

Which is good; because Cassian’s head is full of bright lights and loud noises and green eyes and he doesn’t think he is able to make a case about his current state of mind or health or his overall sanity right now.

 

**[then]**

_“Why me?” she asks, hugging her knees more tightly to herself. “Why not someone more… experienced?”_

_He smiles a little and sits down on the marble stairs beside her. “Because you take these godawful lines and make them sound real. Because you surprised me.”_

_She’s_ beautiful, _that was another reason. She’s_ different. _In truth, he chose her because she fascinates him – this woman has something spell-binding about her, on stage or off it, and he couldn’t imagine anyone else in the role the moment he saw her in it._

_There’s a fire inside her, and it’s a mesmerising, dangerous thing and he doesn’t know how to keep himself from getting burned and he couldn’t care less._

_“Still, you’re taking a gamble with me,” she mutters, her green eyes deep and dark in the dim light of the streetlamps, and his throat tightens just a little._

_“I am,” he mutters, trying to remember all the reasons why what he’s about to do is a terrible idea, and comes up empty. “I am taking a gamble.”_

_And then he’s kissing her and her fingers tighten around his collar, tangle in his hair; and he thinks that even if it doesn’t work, if he plays all in and loses – even then, it’d be worth it just for this._

**[now]**

There’s a hush going through the busy backstage area, announcing her arrival to him this time.

“Shouldn’t you be sitting in the back of a limo already, Jyn?” he asks very softly without looking up from the script he is annotating.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says and he glances up to see her lean against the doorframe in all her golden glory, her face a little flush from the stuffy hot air in the auditorium and some of her curls hanging limp. She’s smudged her lipstick close to the right corner of her mouth, and he has to consciously stop himself from staring.

“I came in a cab, and I’ll leave in one. I’m not _that_ big a deal.”

“Not yet,” he says with a small smile and returns his eyes to his script just to be safe. “And I think the point is that _I’m_ not that big a deal.”

“Never pegged you for someone with an inferiority complex.”

He grimaces, then puts the script down and gets to his feet, realising too late how little space that leaves between them. “What do you want, Jyn?”

“I wanted to congratulate you,” she says in a slightly prickly tone. “But I see you’re not interested in my opinion, so I guess I’ll go –“

“Don’t,” he says, and hates himself a little for how it comes out far too quickly and too raw around the edges. “I am. Interested.” _Eres patético_ _._ “In your opinion.”

There’s still a sliver of steel in her eyes, but she takes a few steps towards him and her voice is soft. “Bodhi was great.”

He smiles a little. “Yes. I keep him around for a reason.”

The corners of her mouth twitch up, then the moment is gone. She’s standing painfully close – as in painfully _within reach,_ and yet –

“Your actress was a good pick.”

“Yes. _Good._ Not my first choice,” he replies, very softly, before he can stop himself.

“She’s pretty,” she says in a strange voice, and something flickers across her features that is so much of the softness she used to let him glimpse once that his chest tightens at the sight of it.

“I suppose,” he answers, and he figures it’s a diplomatic enough answer, but Jyn’s eyes flare at his words.

“Did you sleep with her?”

He sighs and folds his arms in front of his chest. “Is that who I am now?” he asks, trying hard not to sound hurt. He shouldn’t be. He _did_ sleep with Jyn, after all, so technically it’s not a wildly unfair question, but then coming from her –

“Am I the guy who sleeps with his lead actresses?”

“Did you?”

He catches her eyes, feels his jaw set a little too tightly. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

“Don’t be so _fucking_ condescending,” she spits, glaring up at him despite her heels.

He scoffs, shakes his head, and drops his gaze to fix his feet instead. “No. I did not.”

For what feels like a full five minutes, they just stand there, close enough for him to imagine he can feel her warmth on his skin – and the mere idea of that is sending a shiver down his spine – and neither of them moves, or says a word. It’s an absolute nightmare.

“You were right,” she says then, rather abruptly. “He wasn’t good enough. Justin.” There is another small pause, then she resumes, in a more collected tone:

“I loved the show. It’s been good to see you again.”

“Yes,” he says stupidly, caught in the green of her eyes again like some goddamn teenager. “Thank you.”

 _And he let you walk away,_ he hears his own voice, less than three hours ago, _then he probably wasn’t good enough for you in the first place._

She nods, turns to leave, then stops on her way out, fingers curling around the doorframe. “I couldn’t blame you for not calling,” she says, her voice soft and strained and a little lost.

That’s all it takes for his mind to recreate the feeling of it, of staring at her number in the middle of the night, and of the reasonable voice in his head telling him that he has no right to call. That he did this to himself, because he did this to _her;_ because when you take a gamble and you lose, you don’t argue, you walk away from the table and try to find a way to pay your debts.

He doesn’t think he has a single memory as clear and accurate as the look on her face the day she left. The emptiness, the ashes in her eyes – it’s a crippling thing, even now, when it’s just a memory, when she’s here and her eyes are all but cold.

“I lost your number,” he says quietly and she looks like he’d spit her in the face. He can’t blame her.

 _(_ _Cobarde_ _.)_

“No, you didn’t,” she replies with a slight shake of her head and leaves the room.

_And he let you walk away, did he?_

“Jyn. Wait,” he says with a grimace and hurries after her. “I couldn’t – I did this. I said you could handle it and I knew there was a chance you couldn’t.”

She just looks at him, guard up, waiting. He wonders how much of that armour is his fault.

“I _wanted_ to call you.”

“Well, that’s a fat lot of use to me now, Cassian,” she answers quietly, but there is something softening in her features, steel melting just a tiny bit just a tiny bit. She has no right to glow in such _warmth_ under the sharp blue light of the neon lights, he thinks, and despite the chilly concrete walls he’s not as cold as he should be.

“There’s gonna be… the crew and all, there’ll be celebration.”

“Tell me you’re not asking me to come to you celebrating your _premiere,_ ” she says in a startled, defensive sort of voice.

He smiles a grim little smile and shakes his head. “No. I’m asking you to be my excuse not to go.”

She frowns at him, biting her lip – damn it, he’s staring at the lipstick smudge again.

“What?”

“Let me buy you a drink,” he says flatly, and thinks that could have been phrased far more elegantly but at least the words are out, which is probably what counts.

“Right now?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Cassian,” she says, shaking her head at him, “it’s _your_ play. This is _your_ success being celebrated. You have to be there.”

“I’m pretty sure nobody’s going to miss the man who spent the last three months ordering them around, Jyn,” he replies with a shrug. “So what do you say?”

Her teeth scrape cherry red off her lip and black fingernails dig into the fabric of her dress.

“ _Fine_. One drink. But only if it’s not far. I can’t walk in these shoes,” she says in a gruff sort of voice, but he smiles, an almost painful warmth spreading in his chest.

It’s a chance. A chance is all he needs.

 

**[then]**

_“You are always looking at her. You look at her too much. It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion. Something terrible may happen,” Kay recites very quietly and stirs in his cup. Whatever is in it looks like he scooped it up from a dirty river._

_Cassian sighs. “Who said that?”_

_“Oscar Wilde.”_

_Cassian nods, turns a page in his script, and returns his eyes to the stage. There is a tear in her tights; at the beginning of rehearsal it was just a thin white line tracing along the curve of her calf up to the back of the knee. Now it is working its way upwards and he cannot tear his eyes off of it for the life of him._

_“It’s a very pretty line.”_

_Kay sighs and takes a sip from the cup. “Why won’t you ever listen to me?”_

_“Because I’m not doing anything, and you’re not my mother,” he replies absent-mindedly, and wonders exactly how aware she is of the unfortunate angle he’s sitting at – it’s not like he’s_ trying _to look up her skirt, it’s just that there is nearly no way around it when she is standing this close to the edge of the stage._

_“Violent ends, Cassian,” Kay says morosely. “Let nobody say I didn’t warn you.”_

_“Kay,” he replies in an even tone without taking his eyes off the stage, “if you quote Shakespeare one more time, I will throw you out.”_

 

**[now]**

She looks _outrageously_ out of place, Cassian thinks wistfully and takes a sip from his glass. It’s not just the dress, it’s all of her; it’s the fact that her eyes gleam at him and there’s a glow in her cheeks that put the pathetic LED candle on the table to shame. Even now that the last of her lipstick has been left on her glass and her hairdo doesn’t quite deserve the name anymore, even when there is something exhausted in the way she blinks into the dim light… still, he thinks he might burn if he gets too close, and still, like some sort of moth he desperately wants to.

(It seems that wisdom _doesn’t_ necessarily come with age, he thinks and grins to himself. Goddamn it, he’d do it all over again.)

“If I’d come back to apologise,” she says slowly, eyes on the glass on her hands. “If I’d come back, would you have forgiven me? For ruining the project? I’ve always wondered.”

He sighs. “You know, some say the saying goes _the show must go wrong._ Maybe it was for the best.”

“So that’s a no,” she says, softly, and doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I wouldn’t have,” he replies after a moment, feeling very light-headed. “Not if you’d apologised for _that,_ anyway.”

Her eyes flicker up at him, the steel in them molten. This is what he’s always admired in her – her way of picking herself up off the floor again and again, and keep that fire alive. Keep all her stubbornness and her passion and her warmth. He doesn’t know how she does it.

“I don’t care you left _the_ _show,_ Jyn,” he adds, in a voice that is all edges and truths and nothing like him at all.

He wishes they were alone. He wishes there wasn’t a sticky table between them. He wishes the light would be better so he could see her properly; wishes he was allowed to reach out and…

There’s a small, brittle smile playing around her lips, and there’s that look in her eyes again that makes his blood boil.

“Well, I… maybe it _was_ for the best, but I’m sorry,” she says softly and Cassian bites his lip to stop himself from smiling back. “For running. All of it. Running’s all I was ever really good at, so…”

No, he’s fighting a lost battle. He smirks at her, finishes his glass and replies: “I could name a few other things.”

She blinks, once, twice, then laughs. “Smooth. I did think you got better with your dialogues.”

“I didn’t write it,” he replies and she smiles and gets to her feet, empty glass in hand.

“Of course you didn’t.” She leans over the table for a moment to whisper in his ear. “I still maintain that girl was a miscast. She looked nothing like me, either.”

His eyes fall shut against his will, and if he breathes in her perfume a little too deeply, well, who is to know?

(It’s still the same one she wore when he met her; it smells like flowers and wood and smoke and it goes straight to his head just like it did two years ago.)

“She wasn’t supposed to, Jyn,” he replies in a barely passable impression of his own voice. “Have you never heard of symbolism?”

She chuckles and pulls away and – _damn it,_ he’s too old to be this overwhelmed by any of this. “Symbolism, yeah. I do think you might want to work on your subtlety,” she says, still with that slow maddening smile on her lips. “I’m really _trying_ to be flattered you associate me with something that burns to ashes on a regular basis, but I’m having a hard time.”

He chuckles and decides not to reply. He has a feeling she understands well enough.

“More of the same for you?”

“Please.”

 _One drink,_ she said. This is the third.

 

**[then]**

_“Alright, here’s number… twenty-two,” Kay announces in a less than enthusiastic voice. “Jyn Erso. What a name. Played the female lead in three different plays back when Saw Guerrera was director here. Small parts since. Looks like a bit of a one-hit wonder to me.”_

_Cassian watches the woman entering the stage along with Bodhi and smiles a little. “A pretty one.”_

_“Because that’s our criteria now?”_

_Cassian shrugs. “Well, it doesn’t hurt. On the posters, I mean.“_

_The two actors on stage take up their scripts and begin the scene, and Cassian shuts up very quickly._

_She’s… damn it, she’s_ perfect _. She manages to make Bodhi Rook even better, which is no small feat, and for the first time, he buys a single line of that script._

_He seriously hopes she doesn’t look down to see him staring up, because he can’t take his eyes off her for the life of him, and he can’t really find any reason to want to, either._

 

**[now]**

“Where are you staying?”

She pulls her coat tighter around her small frame and flashes him a faint smile. “If that’s an offer to walk me there, I hope you have the day off, Cassian.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Okay. Let’s find you a taxi, then.”

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll –“

“Jyn,” he says, his voice a little softer and hoarser than he’d like it to be. “I _do_ have the day off, you know?”

The smile pulling at her lips this time stays there. “You’ve earned that.”

“We’ll see what Kay has to say about that once the reviews come in,” he mutters with a grin and buries his hands in his pockets to contain the urge to put an arm around her shoulders.

“Same old Kay, I see,” she replies, shaking her head and swaying a little on her shoes, lightly bumping into him.

“He’s just doing his job,” he says absent-mindedly. “So when does shooting start?”

“I’ve got to be in LA in two weeks,” she replies, then adds hastily, only half-joking: “Oh God, don’t tell anyone. That’s probably in my NDA. It’s absurd, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve signed.”

“I swear I won’t,” he says softly, doing a very bad job pretending the information doesn’t sting just a little. _Two weeks._

For a while, they walk in silence, either too close or too far apart for his heart to take it, then she says in a very small voice:

“I’ve missed you, too, you know?”

Cassian grimaces. “Am I _that_ obvious?”

Jyn laughs, again stumbling into him. Her hand grips the back of his jacket for balance and her head falls on his shoulder. His breath catches in his throat just a little and he caves in and winds an arm around her waist – to keep her steady, obviously. He has no intention whatsoever to keep her warmth at his side or pull her closer. None at all.

“Cassian,” she murmurs into his ear, still with that laughter deep in her throat that sends a shiver down his spine, “you wrote a bloody play about it.”

“No comment,” he replies with a slight smile and a headshake that may or may not be a lazy excuse to bury his nose in her soft hair.

“I hope it does well,” she says, still a trace of laughter in her voice, “so I can do that big reveal about it when we’re old and grey, you know. Sell my memoirs.”

It’s strange to hear Jyn talk about the future, somehow. He’s never had the impression she ever makes plans for anything lying more than a few months ahead – and well, he doesn’t make a habit out of it himself.

Still, with no small amount of surprise he realises he likes the image.

“Is that the only purpose in my career then?” he quips and she sighs, her fingers balling to a fist in the fabric of his jacket.

“Shut up. You know I love your stuff. Always have.”

As they reach a busier street, Jyn winds out of his arm to hail a cab and Cassian feels the loss of her warmth like something physical.

“This was fun,” she says quietly, turning back towards him and then to his immense shock her hand grips his collar and she rises to the tip of her toes to press a kiss to his cheek.

His heart misses a handful of beats.

“Goodnight.”

“Jyn, wait,” he mutters and reaches up to bury his fingers in her hair, but she cuts him off with a warm smile playing around her lips.

“I kept that number. See if you can find it.”

With that, she pulls away and climbs into the waiting taxi before he can say another word.

Cassian is left standing on the pavement to watch the car disappear down the road with a slight smile, shaking his head.

_Fire and powder._

He can’t count all the times Kay warned him that she would be the end of him, and he’s never agreed more. He’s also never cared less.

 

**Author's Note:**

> a) I went overboard with the symbolism. I know. I mostly don't regret it ~~except for the last line which is admittedly pretty terribble~~.
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> b) Cassian randomly starts speaking Spanish to himself in the middle of this. I don't speak Spanish, though, so if any of that is wrong, please correct me!
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> c) I know, I know - two tiny kisses do not count as action. I didn't feel like it would've made sense for this story (because let's face it, this is already sappy as all hell).
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> d) I don't know where the sudden urge to pull a Memento came from, but yes, the cursive snippets from the past are going backwards in time.


End file.
